The #NewUAAPRule

“Here in the
UAAP, we prioritize protecting the interests of our sports programs over
upholding the interests of our student-athletes.”

It’s bad
enough that the league actually has a “Soc Rivera” rule to discourage
student-athletes from choosing the school/program they really want. Now the
members of the UAAP Amendments Board, along with those who voted in favor of
the proposed amendments, actually found a way to make an already bad rule even
worse.

We all know
the saying about not fixing something that isn’t broken right? Well, by golly,
this time we have a real world example of something broken made even more…
absurd.

You graduate
from a UAAP HS. You transfer to another UAAP institution because you want to be
an architect, and architecture is not offered in your old school’s university.
You decide to try out for your new school’s judo team because you were a pretty
good judoka back in HS. Also, the prospect of an athletic scholarship would
really help. The coach is impressed, but then he tells you he cannot get you
because you came from another UAAP school. He wants to prioritize students who
can compete right now. He gets someone who graduated from an NCAA HS instead.
The scholarship goes to him, too.

Or this:

You graduate
from a UAAP HS. You were a pretty decent football player in your old school,
but you certainly won’t crack the roster of the Seniors team because, well,
there are just too many other players who are better than you at the same position.
The coach of a rival UAAP school gets in touch with you and says there might be
a slot in that school’s Seniors team instead. Of course, you won’t be the star
player of that team, but you take the “offer” because at least there’s a chance
to actually make the final roster. The #NewUAAPRule is fine with you because,
well, you’re just patient like that. In the two years you sit out, the school
manages to land new recruits from elsewhere who are even better than you at,
again, the same position – guys who are younger and more talented. You end up
not playing at all. Your potential is unfulfilled.

Or this:

You’re a
really talented volleyball player from the provinces who was recruited to play
for a high school in Metro Manila. During your stint in the Juniors division,
you play against great athletes and meet some of the most renowned coaches in the
sport. You hope that, someday, you can play alongside these greats. You
graduate from a UAAP HS. Because you’re such a great talent, several other UAAP
schools try to recruit you for the Seniors division. Some of these schools
employ the coaches you admired, and some of these schools are home to the
players with whom you’ve always wanted to be teammates. Ironically, now that
you’ve graduated, now that you’re supposed to feel the most free, you feel like
you’re forced to stay put because of the two years you’ll miss.

Or this:

You graduate
from a UAAP HS… oh, wait. I think the point has been made – this amendment to
the Soc Rivera rule (are we going to dub it Soc Rivera 2.0 now, or the Jerie
Pingoy rule?) can go wrong in so many ways and on so many levels.

And because
of what? Because the UAAP and some of its member schools are infected with the
twisted mindset that is the driving force behind this new rule.

What mindset?

Two words.

Selfishness
and bitterness.

In the UAAP,
it seems like a school is supposed to look at its student-athletes the same way
an investor looks at his mutual funds or stocks. A school finds a student, sees
athletic potential, recruits him, and lets him play in the UAAP. At some point
in this process, perhaps with the student not even realizing it, the school
feels as if it owns the rights to its perceived “investment.” It has to yield
dividends, and it has to be the school that will benefit no matter what.

See what’s
twisted there?

In the UAAP,
when a school’s Juniors program successfully graduates its players, the
expectation is not for the students to make choices they feel are best for
themselves, but for the students to make just one choice – to join the same
school’s Seniors program. Nothing else.

See what’s
twisted there?

In case
you’re having difficulty seeing the wrinkles in that kind of set-up, let me try
to clarify things. Now, just to make sure you know where I’m coming from, know
that I’ve been teaching full-time for TEN years, and that I am the
moderator/coach of a sports club/team in a UAAP school.

As far as my
research has uncovered, the UAAP is supposed “to provide the UAAP athletes a
venue to hone their athletic prowess” – as mentioned on uaapsports.studio23.tv.
The same site also expresses how the league “serves as a breeding ground for
national athletes.” Nowhere in those lines can there be found any indication of
protecting school sports programs as the primary priority. If we consider these
two important lines, we should come up with a singular conclusion – that, by
and large, the UAAP and its member schools must provide opportunities for its
student-athletes’ talents to be maximized. The priority should be the
student-athletes. NOT the programs.

And, no,
don’t even start with the infinitely flawed “oh but the sports programs ARE the
student-athletes” notion.

As for the
schools themselves, well, I’ve always operated under the impression that a school’s
primary mandate is to hone and prepare its students to make the best life
choices in the future, even if one of those life choices is leaving one school
and going to another.

In the
context of student-athletes and sports programs, schools are supposed to use
sports programs as opportunities for student-athletes to sharpen their skills
and to push each other to excel. Sports programs are means to an end, and that
end should be composed of sportsmanship and teamwork.

Not
selfishness and bitterness.

Now just to
reiterate, I’ve always believed that the Soc Rivera rule was something fueled
by this twisted mindset. The only silver lining was that the “old school” could
choose to clear its graduates and, therefore, waive the one-year residency.
This was actually more the norm than the exception, at least as far as I can
recall.

When Jeric
Fortuna moved to UST and when Gwynne Capacio moved to Ateneo, De La Salle-Zobel
didn’t force them to sit their freshman year (Capacio didn’t play his first
year because he was on the RP-Youth squad). When Mike Gamboa and Paolo Romero
went to UP (first year of the Soc Rivera rule in Gamboa’s case), and Paulo Pe
moved to UST, Ateneo cleared them. Ditto when Mark Juruena moved from Adamson
to UP and when Jovet Mendoza went to DLSU from NU. I’m sure many similar things
happened in the other sports, too.

Not all
schools are driven by selfishness and bitterness after all.

Another irony
is it seems like it’s these schools that were put in the negative light.

Now the UAAP
has not only taken out the ability for a high school to clear its graduates, it
also doubled the residency period.

And why?

“We wanted
it to be uniform,” said NU’s Junel Baculi.

It’s a
shallow reason that fails to justify a flawed rule.

Oh well, at
least some members in the UAAP Board admit that there are still many things
left to discuss before the rule is fully finalized and implemented.

“I can’t say
it’s really final because the year isn’t over and any rule change that will be
amended in Season 75 will take effect in Season 76. Season 75 isn’t over yet,”
said UAAP Amendments Committee Head Em Fernandez of Ateneo.

Ironically (yes,
there are just so many ironies with this issue!), Fernandez’s Ateneo was one of
the schools that did not vote in favor of the amendments. UP was the other one.

“May proseso
‘yan. Inapprove na ‘yan ng board pero masyado pang maraming concerns and
loopholes na hindi napag-uusapan,” Atayde commented. “Members of the UAAP board
and the amendments committee still have to draft different guidelines and IRR
because it has a lot of different intricacies.”

Methinks they
pulled the trigger a little too quickly on this one, and they’re seeing the
possible adverse repercussions only now.

Tsk tsk.

I only hope
that the UAAP member schools who voted in favor of this unfavorable rule will
be enlightened. I hope they will remember what the UAAP is truly for, and whose
rights a school is supposed to uphold in the first place.

2 Comment

I have decided that I will be boycotting UAAP basketball (and my beloved Blue Eagles) because of this new rule. From now on I will only be watching and supporting the other UAAP sports as they are the ones most affected by this stupid new rule.

so sad, the supposed "leaders" of the five schools who voted for this new rule are stupid. "protecting the interest of the sports program" is exactly what's wrong with this rule. make rules to protect the players, not the programs. players run the league